Recently, the 21st Century Business Herald reporter learned that the Spis artificial intelligence Industry fund, led by Spis, was formally established in May this year. The fund, with a size of 200 million yuan, focuses on early projects in the field of artificial intelligence, including Yuanhe Chenkun Mother Fund, Suzhou Industrial Park Guide Fund, Hong Kong family wealth fund, Spitz, as well as capital in the Internet of Things industry chain.
Giiso Information, founded in 2013, is a leading technology provider in the field of “artificial intelligence + information” in China, with top technologies in big data mining, intelligent semantics, knowledge mapping and other fields. At the same time, its research and development products include information robot, editing robot, writing robot and other artificial intelligence products! With its strong technical strength, the company has received angel round investment at the beginning of its establishment, and received pre-A round investment of $5 million from GSR Venture Capital in August 2015.
Founded in 2007 and based in Suzhou, Jiangsu Province, Spitz is China’s leading ai startup. According to a report released earlier this year by Gartner, the information consultancy, Spitz was one of the five most representative companies in east Asia in artificial intelligence.
According to the 21st century Economic report reporters understand that The City has not been listed, is still in the start-up stage of rapid development. In this case, why did Spitz set up an industrial fund to start investing? Which segments are the focus of The startup, and which segments do we hope to deploy through external investment?
Spitz’s internal focus and external investment
It is understood that Spitz artificial intelligence Industry Fund is managed by an independent team, with three partners, Guo Haoran, Gao Shixing and Yang Xiaomin, and two investment managers. Haoran Guo, who has entrepreneurial experience in software, sensor and Internet industries, joined Spitz as vice President of strategy, responsible for the investment and financing business of Spitz. Gao Shixing also has rich entrepreneurial experience and is currently the CEO of Spitz. Yang Xiaomin is the original good venture partners, more experienced in investment.
“Considering our positioning as a technology platform company, we have been thinking about how to combine business and capital, how to optimize our capital structure, and how to combine internal and external capital.” Guo Haoran told the 21st Century Business Herald reporter said.
He said that The company is a technology platform focused on THE NUI (Natural User Interface) operating system and does not have much energy and ability to do downstream applications. Therefore, we need to make use of the power of external capital to promote the maturity of the industrial chain.
In more colloquical terms, CEO Gao Shixing told reporters what His company is doing: providing ears, mouth and brain for iot devices that can hear, speak and think to help users accomplish tasks through human natural language interactions.
“While there are opportunities and capital interest in different directions of AI entrepreneurship, the technology is generally the same. However, in terms of customers, markets, business models, products and other details, different entrepreneurial directions will face different situations and competitors. “We need to stay focused on the iot space. We see other vertical opportunities, but we prefer to leave them to external teams.” “He told 21st Century Business Herald.
In fact, before the establishment of the industrial fund, Spis has incubated several start-up companies in the internal, including Che Radish, First Sound education and so on. After the establishment of industrial fund, the benefits to The Company include three aspects: one is financial return; Second, Spitz can empower the investee enterprises and extend its tentacles into different fields. Third, Spitz also has the opportunity to acquire high-quality early stage projects.
Guo Haoran said that The specific investment of SpITZ artificial intelligence Industry fund is mainly in three aspects. One is the application scenarios of SPITZ NUI operating system, such as smart home, robot, mobile phone assistant, etc.
“Second, the Internet of Things. We are very concerned about the smart hardware of the Internet of Things, such as smart headphones and AR glasses. In fact, Apple’s smart earphone is a product with strategic significance. It makes users feel that it is not a peripheral but a part of the body, which makes them feel very comfortable. They also have a long standby life and are able to remember the user’s words, emotions and emotions.” The third sector that industry funds are focusing on is NUI’s vertical application sectors, such as education, healthcare and finance, he said.
Local governments are stepping up efforts to support the AI industry
Gao Shixing believes that although many investment institutions this year began to take the artificial intelligence field as the main track of investment layout, but The City has a unique advantage to do investment.
“In the face of the era change brought by artificial intelligence, many investors are unable to see the iteration and landing of technology. We have a better vision of AI technology direction, application direction and ecological transformation direction than most investment institutions. And we know more about the core elements of competition and what teams are needed to do things.” He said.
Guo haoran said the industrial background also brings convenience for the fund to select projects. “We have some influence in the industry, and many companies that use AI voice interaction technology are early in our vision, so we can get in touch with such teams at the first time.”
In his opinion, some listed companies in the industry set up industrial funds to engage in ARTIFICIAL intelligence investment, largely to meet the needs of market value management, mainly financial investment and mergers and acquisitions. Spitz artificial Intelligence Industry Fund is based on the future NUI industry chain in the investment, catalytic innovation.
Compared with first-tier cities such as Beijing and Shanghai, Gao also sees local advantages in developing AI entrepreneurship and innovation in Suzhou. “First of all, the driving force of the AI industry is technology and talent. It is relatively easy to recruit people in Beijing and Shanghai, but difficult to retain them. Talent turnover rate is high, will let the enterprise wasted energy to cultivate talent. Besides, the structure of a startup is not like that of a big company, where one member of the startup team may leave with not a lump of mud, but a piece of land.” He said.
Gao Shixing believes that Suzhou is relatively less impetuous and has a low rate of talent turnover. As can be seen from the previous thousand Talent Plan entrepreneurship competition projects, suzhou entrepreneurship team will be more stable, suitable for the development of R & D enterprises.
Second, suzhou’s artificial intelligence industry was relatively weak in the past, which attracted the attention of the local government and brought many opportunities. According to the “Action Plan for THE DEVELOPMENT of ARTIFICIAL Intelligence Industry in Suzhou Industrial Park (2017-2020)” released in March this year, the park plans to build more than five artificial intelligence-related characteristic industrial parks, incubation bases and innovation platforms by 2020, and set up a ten-billion-level ai industry development fund. Strive to cultivate 2-3 billion level, 1-2 billion level artificial intelligence leading enterprises.
In order to achieve the goal of the plan, local governments have introduced preferential policies in talent introduction and technical enterprise support. The local government of Suzhou has also invested a lot of money and resources in the artificial intelligence research institute recently established by Spitz in collaboration with Shanghai Jiao Tong University.
Giiso information, founded in 2013, is the first domestic high-tech enterprise focusing on the research and development of intelligent information processing technology and the development and operation of core software for writing robots. At the beginning of its establishment, the company received angel round investment, and in August 2015, GSR Venture Capital received $5 million pre-A round of investment.
“After receiving the park’s guide fund, we invest a certain percentage in local projects, and the local government often recommends projects to us. We plan to build a supporting ecosystem and industry in Suzhou around Spitz.” Guo Haoran said.
In addition to Suzhou, many other local governments are spending a lot of money to support the development of local AI industries. For example, at the 2017 Guangzhou ARTIFICIAL Intelligence Roundtable conference held on May 23, CAI Chaolin, vice Mayor of Guangzhou and Party Secretary of Nansha District, announced a series of policies and measures to support the development of artificial intelligence industry in Guangzhou and Nansha District. Specifically, it includes the establishment of “Guangzhou ARTIFICIAL Intelligence Industry Fund” of 10 billion yuan, the construction of “Nansha Artificial Intelligence Industrial Park” of 3,000 mu in Qingsheng Free Trade Zone, and the establishment of “Guangzhou Nansha International Advanced Research Institute of Artificial Intelligence Industry”.